Every New Beginning by Kris Ripper

Author:Kris Ripper [Ripper, Kris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kris Ripper

Chapter Seven

Molly was up early on New Year’s Eve. Not too early to suck down half a cup of coffee for fortitude and walk through the beach house to get to the beach. Hugh was seated at the dining room table, looking out at the water, apparently undisturbed by the Risk game still spread everywhere.

“Good morning,” she said, keeping her voice low.

He looked over, lips hinting at a smile. “Good morning, Molly. Are you going for a walk?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Would you mind company?”

Had he been waiting for her? Huh. Hugh Reynolds, master of surprise all of a sudden. “Sure, but you’re gonna want something warmer than that.”

He nodded and stood up.

As they went down the stairs and gathered coats in the mudroom, Molly tried to think about the times she’d been alone with Hugh. For moments here and there, in various kitchens. Once at the restaurant when both Will and Truman had gone to the bathroom, sometime after Andrew had made both bathrooms gender neutral (or, as he’d told them his niece said, “gender free, because all genders should be free”).

Not often. And never quite like this. He must have something he wanted to talk about, some reason he was seeking her out.

She’d known him for eight or nine years now. And knew him…more, if not better, than a lot of people she’d known longer than that. “You remember that morning, before the wedding, when we drank coffee in the kitchen after Truman went to work, before Will dragged his ass out of bed.”

“Out of your bed.” Emphasis slight. “Of course I remember.”

“You invited me to watch. As a gift.”

He glanced over, eyes as bright as ever. “You accepted in the spirit in which the invitation was intended.”

“It was a little like having Will on loan. I always knew he’d get his shit together eventually.”

But Hugh shook his head. “I think you…run the risk of cheapening that period in both of your lives. You did not have Will on loan. Nor did he you. You gave yourselves to each other as completely as you were both capable of doing so at the time. Which was, as you’ll recall, more completely than he could give himself to us.”

“Except for your wedding night.”

“Well, that was sex. Sex is different.”

She’d have never done it back then, but now she put her arm through his as they walked. “It’s really nice to see you, Hugh. This has turned into quite the event over the last few years.”

“It has. It feels…good. This is what my mother would have wanted for me at the holidays. I spent years trying to ignore them, missing her terribly, being unable to…to enjoy Christmas without her. And now we do this, and I look forward to it each year.”

“I’m so glad.” And she was. Damn the tears in her eyes. That was almost definitely because of the wind.

“I have a request. No pressure at all, of course.”

Of course. She waited.

“They tease me about making a speech at New Year’s, but the truth is that I think the passing of time should be commemorated.

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